The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

The same in Vintage 1990 edition: the Palm At The End Of The Mind, p. 279.

When googling this poem, I found the word "most" omitted from that line:
http://www.filg.uj.edu.pl/ifa/przeklad/wshusorg.html
http://www.repeatafterus.com/title.php?i=4700
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Wallace-Stevens/1023
http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1024/
http://www.eliteskills.com/c/12886 etc.

Is this just a lot of people's sloppy typing, or did Stevens re-do that line somewhere? Any insight? Thank you.

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Poem Info

Poet:Wallace StevensPoem: The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
Last read: 2015-08-01 14:30:10
Poem of the Day:Jan 23 2006
Viewed 11479 times.
Added Feb 20 2003.